Fuel price hike again?

Once more, the Jonathan administration is demonstrating utter insensitivity to the plight of the general public that presumably elected him to run the affairs of the country till 2015. Since he assumed office in May 2011, it has been a litany of woes; some due to clear incompetence, others due to sheer wickedness and recklessness. Despite confessing to starting life as a poor child in a typical Ijaw village, the president has not demonstrated empathy for the underprivileged. Many are wont to blame the ills being perpetrated by the regime on the legion of advisers. I choose to differ.

A leader is free to choose those to work with. When he does, he makes a statement about the direction he has chosen to travel. The first indication that a leader intends to succeed is given by the quality of officials and advisers he picks. He is thus saying that he would take responsibility for their deeds and misdeeds. Why then turn around to blame them when things turn awry? In any case, he also has full powers to sack any official who fails to live up to expectations. But, when an Edwin Clark decides what government does and who is saddled with what responsibility, the outcome is obvious.

Twice now within a week, President Goodluck Jonathan has informed us to brace up for another round of hardship as his government is set to further inflict pains on Nigerians already impoverished by his regime’s economic policies. He said the so-called fuel subsidy would soon be finally removed. He believes that his government has got over the spontaneous demonstrations in various parts of the country January last year. He is driven by the need to start amassing wealth to fight the 2015 electoral battles and thinks the best way to do it is make the people pay to enable him impose an unpopular government on them. Dr. Jonathan is no longer afraid of the likely consequences of the action.

It is a shame that, despite the ugly revelations during the probe of the subsidy deals presided over by the Petroleum Resources Ministry, no official has been punished. It is business as usual. To buy time, the regime had moved swiftly to hoodwink the people by setting up committees and task forces that would ostensibly sanitise the sector. The two houses of the federal legislature also swung into action and treated Nigerians daily to theatrics.

A SURE-P scheme was hurriedly initiated to lull the people into believing that infrastructure would be given facelift. And, to further indicate that it meant business, it sought to buy into the integrity of an over-recycled Dr. Christopher Kolade. A nonagenarian Kolade was made chairman of the scheme in the same way that General Muhammadu Buhari was brought by General Sani Abacha to preside over the Petroleum Trust Fund. In about one year, it is obvious now that the SURE-P has collapsed. Dragged before committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Dr. Kolade failed to convince anyone that he is really in charge. He neither could defend activities of the programme in one year, nor could he explain the notorious duplications in the budget.

Now, the regime wants to increase prices of petroleum products again using the same jaded and hackneyed arguments that the military first introduced. Why should anyone trust Jonathan and his clique when they have failed woefully to justify the confidence earlier reposed in them? What would they be doing with the trust they want reposed in them this time? Should more fund come into government coffers, how would that translate to better life for the people when we have a government that is at best at sea on most issues?

Very soon, my brother, former comrade and friend, Labaran Maku would be all over the public space, making those points that he had joined us in debunking when Babangida first advanced them in the early nineties. He would tell us that hiking the prices would check activities of smugglers. He would tell us that only consumers in Lagos and Abuja are protected by the current pricing mechanism as the products sell for much more in other parts of the country. He would suggest that only the rich benefit from the subsidy. Labaran and his soul mates, Reuben Abati and Doyin Okupe, would argue that the pains arising from the removal would be soothed by a number of measures to be put in place and that SURE-P would be strengthened.

It is obvious that the federal government is set to remove the subsidy. Whether it succeeds depends on the people. A massive point was made by the protests that rocked Lagos, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, among other cities last year. The civil society groups that organized that should begin to mobilize Nigerians across the strata again. If the government is not tired of anti-peoples’ moves, the public should not be tired of rising against such unpopular measures. It should be noted that the government and security forces would have learnt some lessons from their least performance, but so should we, the people of Nigeria. We cannot afford to allow one organisation take sole charge; neither should the movement be restricted to a few cities. This time, even the rural folks should be brought on board.

TIME IS THE ESSENCE. SOON OR LATER ORDINARY NIGERIAN WILL ACCEPT IT AS REALITY THAT SUBSIDY HAS TO GO. YOU’RE JUST WORKING TO OIL MARKETERS. THE CITIZENS WILL BE BETTER OFF TO DEAL WITH FREE MARKET AND IT GET WORSE AS ITS NOW.